


tender

by elena_stidham



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, It's a First Time Post-game post-memory loss, Kinda, Light Angst, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Poetry, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Selectively Mute Link, Smut, There's a poem in the beginning but it goes into actual content I promise, Vanilla, just a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 17:39:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15272769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elena_stidham/pseuds/elena_stidham
Summary: WARNINGS FOR: language, smutSONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: Funny enough, the Stranger Things soundtrackGuys I just finished a whole series and so you know what that means? Porn break! Okay I just really wanna write some Zelda themed poetry and Zelink porn. There’s just something about Zelda that’s so poetic that I just,,,,,I wanna dive in it. I promise I have actual content coming soon but I hit a roadblock with the chaptered Zelda fic I’m planning soooo…here’s some smut. It’s their first time post-reunion/post-game, if that provides any context! If you’d like to read more fics and little snippets and possibly get first glimpses at WIPs please consider following my Zelda tumblr, minuetofthewild. If you’d prefer to see just what I get up to and things I find pretty, you’d probably prefer my personal, elenastidham. Either way, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy my attempt at this!-Elena





	tender

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS FOR: language, smut  
> SONGS USED TO GET IN THE MOOD: Funny enough, the Stranger Things soundtrack  
> Guys I just finished a whole series and so you know what that means? Porn break! Okay I just really wanna write some Zelda themed poetry and Zelink porn. There’s just something about Zelda that’s so poetic that I just,,,,,I wanna dive in it. I promise I have actual content coming soon but I hit a roadblock with the chaptered Zelda fic I’m planning soooo…here’s some smut. It’s their first time post-reunion/post-game, if that provides any context! If you’d like to read more fics and little snippets and possibly get first glimpses at WIPs please consider following my Zelda tumblr, minuetofthewild. If you’d prefer to see just what I get up to and things I find pretty, you’d probably prefer my personal, elenastidham. Either way, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy my attempt at this!  
> -Elena

nothing short of rough,

his touch is tender.

 

a flower in her hair,

for each separate dying ember.

 

maintaining by each needle and thread,

a kiss rests on her shoulder.

 

despite the cries while she lies awake,

his touch is nothing exempt from tender.

 

* * *

****

While awake before each surrender, Link can’t help but remember that he forgot. He had forgotten _her._ He had forgotten her face, her lips, the way she’d taste when his mouth was between her legs – he had forgotten her all.

Until he remembered.

Well, more like _mostly_ remembered. It was some kind of distance just past halfway. It was close enough.

This distance felt heavy just now, a little longer and just more likely to tremble. This was the kind of distance that carried itself in a manner just moments before being willing to break. It’s the distance he wants to fill.

Link watches her while she rests – the way her chest gradually starts to rise and fall with each breath, the way her arms are pressed delicate, underneath her pillow, another reaching for an arm. This was the hand he’d hold. Link watches her sometimes; she has a tendency to have nightmares.

Screams with a clutch of cloth and skin was a relatively often occurrence at night time, some dreams worse than others. This time it doesn’t seems so awful, though, her murmurs and small bouts of thrashing were about the worst of her discomfort in sleep tonight. Link gently presses her arm, shaking just slightly in hopes it would wake her up from whatever her closed eyelids were seeing.

She screeches as she flails upright, her breathing levelling out to even as she realises that she’s not so far away, that she’s somewhere in-between safe and harmed. He’s careful when he reaches forward to touch her, remembering his timing and remembering the few locations that wouldn’t start instant panic while she’s in the process of calm. The back of her hand was where he chose to place his fingers.

Her eyes instantly dart behind her, looking at her hand first before making contact with the one that holds it. He doesn’t ask if she’s okay, and she wouldn’t provide an answer regardless, but she glides forward to rest her head against his chest and close her eyes while he holds her whole. She was very particular about pressing her ear to where his heart lies.

Ah, so he died again.

Link brushes his fingers through her hair, careful when he stumbles into a tangle, leaning his body against the top of the bedframe as he just let her calm. There’s a part of him that desperately wants to reach out and say her name, but he remains quiet for her. He plants a kiss on the top of her head, hoping that can be enough.

There’s only so much you can do to help someone like her – someone that had been in her situation – especially since nobody told them what they were supposed to do _after_ they save the world.

Link tilts up her head, blue eyes connecting with green, before he hopes just one more kiss would do well to suffice. He wants more of her. He wants more of her in a way that will leave her trembling around him and screaming, their bodies lined up with sweat and with silk sticking to skin. He wants to take her far, far away.

And when they kiss, suddenly Zelda doesn’t feel the weight of the world anymore, her body melting as her lips are lingering in one particular place.

“Link,” she pleads.

Link doesn’t respond.

 _“Link,”_ she repeats, grounding herself on her knees.

Link pulls his lips from her skin, allowing his gaze to rest on her shoulder for a brief moment before meeting her eyes. There was a slight red and pink tinge to his face, his body already at a heated rise just from slight variants of suggestive contact. It’s the tiniest of details that always seemed to get to her.

Just like now.

She pulls him in and lays back, her body landing against the mattress as Link carefully leans down to climb on top of her. There’s a lot of heaviness in their breathing, and he would have to be sure to keep it on the down-low until there was true arousal.

Zelda pecks his lips and grinds her hips upwards to bring Link down further, relishing in the shaky gasp that exited his throat.

“Are we doing this?” she asks.

Link stares at her, his mouth suddenly falling dry as he’s unable to form a sentence or even a word. His arms are practically pinned down on either side of her to keep himself steady; his eyes were wide and his head couldn’t move in either direction to indicate an answer.

Zelda reiterates. “Do you _want_ to do this?”

That’s when his neck finally snaps out of its lock and he’s able to nod freely, the first few shakes fumbling as he sits up. He’s gesturing to her now, currently lost without a voice but still wanting to ask: _do you?_

She nods.

Link doesn’t know where to begin, but he’s definitely afraid. He knows he’s done this before, he knows it’s been a hot minute, but _a hundred years_ without any kind of contact with her? It suddenly made him very aware that it might as well be their first time together.

He takes the safe route and leans down to kiss her again, this time his lips tenderly following a certain pattern along her skin. Her fingers lace up, delicate palms press against his chest as some sort of request before her hands trail downward. He knows what she’s trying to say.

Link slips out of his shorts, his hands glide up along her leg before he finds them tucked underneath her nightgown to caress her skin. Despite what’s happening he still avoids her breasts – just for the moment – as he helps her pry the heavy cloth past her waist and over her head.

_Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare—_

He’s staring. It’s impossible not to. If it wasn’t fact that she’s a deity’s reincarnate he would have surely believed that she was a goddess in her own right. Beauty like hers was exquisite, and it could only be unimaginably unfathomable to think that she would be with him, in their bed, _together._ How could he have forgotten _her?_

His eyes trail down, fingertips pressing into her skin as she pushes her hips upwards to make it easier for him to pull off the final bits of cloth restraining them from joining. He leans back, glancing up at Zelda for a brief moment of reassurance, before he lays back down to rediscover what she tastes like.

Her first moan is always breathy – a trembling kind of gasp that sounds more like an aroused bit of shock rather than enjoyment of the sensation. This he remembers. However, he didn’t remember how she’d wrap her legs around his neck, her feet dangling in mid-air as he kept a steady grip on her. This he had to relearn.

Zelda’s head lolled back and she let one of her hands bury itself into Links hair, her eyes closed as she finds a rhythm rocking against his tongue. Her breathing grows heavier, her chest sinking deeper towards the mattress with each exhale as her body starts to climb towards its peak – and it descends just as quickly.

Her body rocks forward with a loud cry, her grip on Link’s head tightening as she ascends and quivers through her climax. She takes a few quick breaths, before falling back down against the bed, her love eyes following Link’s gaze with a tinge of lust. He’s shaking. He’s completely erect, but shaking.

“Do you want me to take the lead?” She asks with a light smile, a little breathless.

He thinks for a moment, and with a deep breath he shakes through a nod, watching with awe in his eyes as Zelda pushes him backwards and climbs up on top of him. She doesn’t sit just yet, leaning forward to cup his face and kiss him there before pushing back. It starts as a soft grind, enough to get him used to the sensation before she carefully takes him and sinks down.

Link’s hands react before she does, quickly clutching onto her thighs, fingertips pressing deep into her skin as he breathes – _hard_ – from the feeling of her. He’s still staring at her, then she presses her palms against his chest and starts to move, before deciding that she’d rather have her arms holding her up from behind her. Link sees every dip and curve of her skin, shaded in a bluish glow from the moonlight, streaks of white beaming in from the sky. They’re just far enough to where they aren’t bright reflections of the night’s sun in the sky, but they’re bright enough to be seen by each other. They’re in that distance that’s just past halfway, but it’s close enough.

And it’s _perfect._

Link watches her, the stars in his eyes while they find a rhythm to match how she rides and he just feels like overflowing. During this time of night after certain circumstances, they aren’t as vocal as they’d usually be. Their moans are more along the lines of heavy breaths and it’s still been some of the best ways they could fully feel each other and focus on it.

Zelda’s eyes flicker to him in the dark, between her gasps and tiny moans she finally manages to push some words out. “Aren’t you going to say something?”

Link knows that it comes from a place of worry – knowing that normally by this point with how close he feels he’s _definitely_ saying something to her. Anything. But now? This was a moment of pure feelings that he just wanted to etch into his brain forever; this was a moment he was going to refuse to forget.

But still, he manages to make his words push forward, small grunts finding spots in his sentence between each word. “Considering that you’re naked and on top me,” he grins through a shaky breath. “It’s hard to be anything except speechless.”

Her smile is warm to him, tender, and it’s everything he needs to prop himself on his elbows and use that as a means to bring himself forward to carefully grab her. He doesn’t pull himself out and away, however, just guiding them to where they were before – with her laying down, her hair sprawled everywhere behind her head with the perfect view of her face.

Link uses this to reposition himself so he can drive into her deeper, and with the _sounds_ that starts to escape her mouth and the faces she starts making, he knows for a fact that he’s not going to last long.

“Fuck—Hylia—right _there_ ,” Zelda pleads, her hand reaching up to hold Link by the back of his neck, her body starting to tense. It’s everything he can do to hold it together and just press his face against her bare skin as she clenches around him, her legs starting to shake.

Just as she rides out her orgasm, Link finally releases his turn, careful as he spills into her and breathes out nothing but empty gasps and fragments of nowhere – but it all fell somewhere.

They wait for just a few seconds to catch their breaths, before they make eye contact and just descend into a fumble of giggles and soft kisses along their faces. It was too _beautiful._ He lays her back to where she lies still during sleep, no more words exchanged other than the softest “I love you.”

He pulls her close and leans in to tenderly kiss somewhere in a distance that’s just past halfway, but it’s close enough.


End file.
